The Apple/Google divorce continues to come into focus: Apple quietly bought Placebase , a mapping service company, back in July. Apple doesn’t buy companies it’s not going to use . Meaning, Apple’s getting into making their own maps. Peace out, Google.

Dell’s 11.6-inch Inspiron 11z just went on sale last month, and already the outfit is opening up the options for those not entirely pleased with the single $399 model. Starting today, a $479 configuration is available to ship with a 250GB HDD and Vista Home Premium (with a Windows 7 upgrade, of course), and if that’s still not enough, prospective customers can soon select their 11z in a variety of colors. We’re talking Alpine White, Ice Blue, Jade Green, New Cherry Red, Passion Purple and Promise Pink, with the latter contributing $5 to breast cancer research. As for optional hardware upgrades, you can slot a dual-core Pentium SU1400 CPU in there alongside 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. As of this very moment, Dell has yet to open up the CTO doors, but we’re guessing an admin is on that as we speak

We’ve long suspected that the Storm 2 would be bowing in the next couple months, within earshot of the original Storm’s one-year anniversary — and new evidence suggests that even if we can’t get an actual device in October, we’ll at least be able to make clicking sounds with our mouths as we amble around a non-functional display unit (you laugh, but it’s our idea of a good Saturday night). Boy Genius Report has been slipped a Best Buy inventory screen — a familiar sight in the phone scooping world — that reports an in-stock date for Storm 2 dummies of October 25. Those dummy units can end up arriving before or after the actual phones, and considering that we’ve seen other evidence pointing to an October launch , this could be the real deal. Tao envy might be a problem by the time this hits, but we’re sure there’ll be a few folks willing to give RIM a mulligan on its touchscreen dealings.

We don’t hesitate to show excitement over non lethal and less-than-lethal weapons , but the reality is that they’re kinda scary. In particular when we’re starting to see hand-held heat weapons which leave little to no trace of ever being used. A long time ago we heard about the UK considering testing out some non lethal directed energy gear. Basically a beam-based weapon which would cause a burning sensation to discourage a victim (or attacker), but not actually damage skin or leave burn marks. This is what the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate , JNLWD, has been exploring since 2005.

Chumby may now finally be branching out with a few less cuddly products of its own, but it looks like you can now also expand your Chumby options yourself with a few basic DIY skills — or you could if you were lucky enough to get in on the first batch of Chumby Guts kits. Offered exclusively through the Maker Shed, the kit includes all the necessary “guts” to let you build any sort of Chumby device you like, and has apparently proven popular enough to sell out before the first shipment even arrived. Those hanging on for that Chumby toaster of their dreams won’t have to wait too much longer to get their fix, however, as the second shipment is set to arrive in late November, and will run the same $99 as before. Filed under: Misc. Gadgets , Household Chumby Guts kit lets you build your own Chumby device originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:24:00 EST.

There are 2,000 in that container. And there are 112 such containers in Microsoft’s $500 million Chicago data center . It may seem somewhat ridiculous, but this container-based data center design is absolutely brilliant (and environmentally sustainable to boot). While we haven’t seen Microsoft’s newest data center, we hear that it has 700,000 square feet of space, really, really high ceilings, and 40-foot stacks of server-filled containers. Thinking about the stacks may leave me with vertigo, but thinking about the ingenuity of the design leaves me impressed: Microsoft has built something which’ll “deliver huge benefits in cost, energy efficiency and environmental sustainability .” All those containers are plug-and-play in a way, complete with corresponding bays, and can be set up by “as few as four employees” in hours. Yes, they’ve designed it so that moving 60 ton stacks of servers requires only four people.

Japanese teen? Got it. Cheerleader uniform? Hmmm-hmmm. Video camera

Japanese teen? Got it. Cheerleader uniform? Hmmm-hmmm. Video camera?

During Typhoon Ketsana in the Philippines last week, residents had to figure out creative ways to stay dry and get around. There are about a dozen reasons this seems like a bad idea, however. [ Big Picture ]

What does Fox have in mind for improving the experience of Blu-rays? Actually…some really great ideas, according to SlashFilm . The most immediate (and maybe most promising) is Live Lookup. It’ll be on the Wolverine disc (you know, the same one that has the PSPgo digital copy ). Live Lookup allows you to hit a button and be linked to IMDB.